#you should thank her for it

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[morebird]

"Don't burn yourself."

[the-storyteller78]

“Though I never thought that it would come to this…”

[ash-and-starlight]

celebrating Her month by updating my mai&sokka bestieism manifesto & introducing their matching undercuts era

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

It's all fun and games until...

[Commission for @dontheckinswear]

[cowboythewizard726]

beautiful orc girl leed helllOOOOO beautiful leed alert oh my GOD she's so cool WOOAHHHH beautiful siilly girl she was really pretty and awesome and so kind i think shes wonderful and there should be a statue made just for her thats really big and in the center of everything and she should get anything she wants ever smile face

[httyd-art-requests]

Concept art light fury? She fits in so well, I wish we got to see her

EXCELLENT REQUEST!!! I love this thing so much, look at her widdle face

Dragon #118 - Concept Art Light Fury

Requests are currently closed!

[artsychanel]

jude duarte.

[twigsyy]

[brimay]

Sometimes I feel normal and then I remember that Peeta is canonically the only person Katniss found truly attractive. And she married him.

[starflungwaddledee]

participated in a "species swap" challenge with starstruck a little while back where i took some prompts to see what she might look like as a few other familiar faces!

once again posting this one as @kirbyoctournament propaganda...! trying hard, it's the final push in the final round!! can she do it?? you can vote here to help! aaa!!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

this has been a roller coaster of a design journey but finally I can present you: class swap artificer!adaine and rogue!fabian

[yazthebookish]

As flattering as it sounds, but if you genuinely and actually believe that I created Gwynriel out of thin air and manipulated a whole fandom into shipping it, this won't sound nice but you're delusional or you're being lied to.

Everyone who was here since February 2021 knows how Gwynriel came to be.

[egophiliac]

I hope someone hasn’t asked but what did you use to rig the deformed Maleanor? It looks so cool!!

thank you! :D :D :D I drew her in Photoshop (there's an overly-long speedrun video here) and rigged her in Spine Professional! her rig is...very messy...but it works for a silly little fanproject where nobody needs to know how many bones I kept shoving in to try and force her cape to stop breaking. :')

it was easier to just export images directly from Spine, so all the backgrounds and credit text are in there too as separate skeletons! who needs compositing when you can just throw everything into one project and let it simmer. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

(I figured I should probably have a tag for this stuff by this point, so I've added #spineposting to posts of/about my Twst chibis and Spine!) (once again I am reminded that I really need to go back and fix poor Che'nya for a third time...)

[ryllen]

Hi! I hope that you are doing well🥰💗💕 I really adore your art!! Your Yuu really wins me over to the very heart!💘💘💘

I wear lightning-shaped earrings and they really remind me of Sebek!⚡ I would like your girl to put them on and draw this🥺💓

But I also really love her black earrings that she wears when she's a teenager and green ones when she's an adult! It's really cute💕💕

And! I would be interested to know if Sebek notices when Yuu puts on other earrings or doesn't wear them at all if she doesn't want to?👉👈💗

Have a nice day!🥰❣️❣️❣️

decide ur ending, which feels more in character

[pineapple-frenzy]

👋🏽 Could you do a taang on your spare? (Toph x Aang) or Team Avatar? Thanks

I haven’t drawn taang in sooooo long omg :'>>